


Wake me from this long sleep

by Khalehla, likealichen



Series: mcukinkbingo [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Black Panther (2018) Post-Credits Scene, M/M, MCU Kink Bingo, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Soul Bond, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 07:44:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17524673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khalehla/pseuds/Khalehla, https://archiveofourown.org/users/likealichen/pseuds/likealichen
Summary: Steve isn’t bothered too much that his soul mark seems to spend all it's time hibernating because he’s kinda accepted that he will die before he’s 30 anyway, and despite Bucky’s reassurances, Steve doesn’t think he’ll meet his soulmate before then. He’s actually okay with that thought.(until he isn't)





	Wake me from this long sleep

**Author's Note:**

> For my mcu kink bingo square "soulmates"

**.i.**

Steve’s soulmark spends a lot of its time sleeping. When he is very little, his Ma would say that’s because he was a growing boy and needed his rest. Over the years, Steve’s bear will wake up occasionally; usually when Steve got really worked up and excitable about something, or when something momentous was happening. But mostly it slept.

It’s so different to his Ma’s otter that never seems to stop moving unless Sarah herself is asleep. It suits her, Steve thinks. It would tut and thump it’s tale, especially when Steve was at death’s door, echoing his Ma’s worry. Sometimes it would hover right at the edge of Sarah’s fingertips, making soft crooning noises as his Ma wiped his face with a cool rag in an effort to bring his temperature down. Occasionally Steve’s bear would muster up the energy to amble over and let itself be petted by Ma’s soul mark. On the first double date Bucky drags him to, both Sarah and her otter make excited noises as Steve gets ready, smoothing his hair while trying to kick at Bucky who is laughing uproariously by the door, already looking handsome in his pressed suit and styled hair.

Bucky’s soulmark is a wolf. Steve knows this because the day they meet, after Bucky gives Tommy another swift kick in the butt and picks both himself and Steve up from the ground and proceeds to introduce himself to his new best friend, Bucky’s soulmark saunters down his arm and sniffs at where the boys are shaking hands. His bear raises his head, ambles slowly over and bops the wolf on the snout, then lays back down again, watching them lazily and occasionally yawning as Bucky takes Steve home to meet Steve’s Ma.

It’s unusual for even the closest of friends to have soulmarks who are willing to touch each other; this type of intimacy is usually only reserved for family and lovers, but Bucky is Steve’s closest and only true friend, and he’s gotten used to having Bucky’s wolf trying to nip at Steve’s skin in an effort to make his bear play. His Ma worries at their closeness sometimes. She makes them promise not to tell other people about it for fear that when they got older and wanted to get married, their potential wives would be suspicious of their bond. Steve feels indignant that anyone would taint his friendship with Bucky like that, but he loves his Ma more than anyone in the world and he trusts her, so he does as she asks.

When Sarah finally succumbs to tuberculosis, his bear goes on a white hot rampage for days; Steve barely notices through the numbness and cold that’s seemed to have taken over his body permanently. Bucky and his family do their best, but it’s months before Steve finally feels thawed out enough to feel, and by then his bear has gone back to mostly sleeping.

Most people - even Bucky and Winifred Barnes - worry over how much Steve’s bear seems to be hibernating since Sarah died. Steve isn’t bothered too much because he’s kinda accepted that he will die before he’s 30 anyway, and despite Bucky’s reassurances, Steve doesn’t think he’ll meet his soulmate before then. He’s actually okay with that thought; by keeping mostly to himself, his bear has prepared him for this reality since he was old enough to know what soulmarks were.

**.ii.**

Steve’s bear wakes up after he comes out of the chamber. He doesn’t notice until afterwards, what with the urgency of trying to find Doctor Erskine’s killer and all the chaos that followed. But one day he’s dressing and he finally notices the movement across his chest, surprised at the prowling and wide-awakeness of his soulmark. The girls on the tour love it, always trying to reach out; at first it had been unnerving having the attention of all these beautiful dames, but his bear had stayed put, watchful but wary, and Steve had unconsciously breathed a sigh of relief.

In the few times that Steve actually thought about his potential soulmate, he’d fearfully hoped it would be Peggy.  His bear dances sometimes when Peggy is around, but he feels none of the fire burning that he’s read about and been told about. At first he thinks it’s got something to do with his own shyness, his inability to not be awkward and mumble around her, but even after his rescue of the 107th, after he’d reunited with Bucky and assigned his own team, had started working closely with Peggy on their special assignments, his bear would mostly lope around his shoulders and chest excitedly, and though it came close once, it never did manage to connect with her raven. He’s crushed, and it’s only Bucky’s misguided and never-ending optimism that gets him through the horrible week.

After Azzano, Bucky tries really hard not to be around Steve shirtless. Steve’s bear, on the rare occasions that they dress at the same time, always seems to be watching Bucky; once Bucky’s wolf peaked out over Bucky’s shoulder to look at them, but both soul marks always stay put. Steve tries hard to be supportive, give Bucky his space, but a part of him is hurt that they’d lost some of the closeness they’d always had, the feeling that Bucky was hiding something from him a shadow over their time in the European theatre. Whenever he catches Bucky with that haunted look on his face trying so hard to hide it from the rest of their team, Steve’s chest tightens and his bear makes soft growling noises of distress. One time he deliberately places his hand lower on Bucky’s shoulders, fingertips just millimeters from Bucky’s wolf, hoping to get a reaction out of them; although the wolf sniffs and rumbles gently in acknowledgement, it doesn’t bridge the tiniest gap between them. There’s a sadness between them for the next two days, and Steve finds himself wishing they were back home in Brooklyn and not in the war torn winter of Europe.

The war isn’t a place to worry about soulmarks, and the days after Bucky falls from the train are a haze of grief, anger and an all-consuming desire to burn Hydra to the ground with his bare hands. Steve kisses Peggy good-bye, but his last thoughts before he crashes the plane into the ice is that at least he’ll be with his Ma and Bucky soon.

**.iii.**

Steve’s bear is hibernating again when he wakes from the ice in an unfamiliar decade amongst unfamiliar people; Steve doesn’t want to think about how even more death-like his soul mark has become, and all the implications of it. He lives the bewildering years after the alien attack in New York sometimes wishing that he’d never been thawed out, heart-sick for the many people he’d lost, already steeling himself to losing Peggy all over again.

Steve’s bear starts dreaming that night of the day on the bridge when he finds Bucky again. Its dreams are restless and sometimes Steve wakes up from nightmares to the dying echoes of distant howls and lonely calls. It’s the most alive his soulmark has ever been aside from the war, and Steve is bitter that not much has changed in the decades since they’d supposedly won the war; he still wants to burn Hydra to the ground with his bare hands.

Steve isn’t surprised when his bear becomes death like again after Bucky goes into cryo; he secretly wishes he could hibernate from the world as well until Bucky was healed and they could run away together and never have to deal with Nazis and accords and corrupt governments ever again.

**.iv.**

They’re in a middle of a fight when Steve’s bear wakes up. It’s Natasha who points it out, blinking at him in surprise two seconds before they get the all-clear from Sam.

“Steve,” she breathes, something like awe in her voice. She points at his shoulder, and it’s at that exact moment that Steve feels the rippling in his skin, the sign that his soul mark is up and active again.

It’s an inconvenient time to be distracted, but something in him soars; he’d always been more alive whenever his bear was active. He doesn’t really have time to figure out what it all means because two weeks later he gets a message from King T’Challa, letting him know that Bucky was awake and Steve could come visit anytime he was free. Steve calls back as soon as he, Natasha and Sam make it to their safehouse, and has a short but intense conversation with Princess Shuri who speaks to him on Bucky’s behalf. It hurts a little, that Bucky doesn’t want to speak to him directly, but not so much that it stops him from saying his goodbyes to Natasha and Sam as soon as he hangs up from his call and making his way to the airfield where he would get picked up by a Wakandan stealth jet.

He’s nervous the whole flight, knee bouncing up and down until the only other passenger on the jet aside from the pilot - a Wakandan War Dog on the way back to the capital for a brief respite - arches her eyebrow at him, then offers him some blueberries. The gesture shocks Steve, reminding him of Tony and his habit of offering people food - usually blueberries - in the midst of a ramble or a rant. When he thanks her and bites into the fruit, it’s tarty and slightly bittersweet; it makes Steve think of the burner phone hidden in his duffle whose twin he had couriered to New York a year ago.

When they land, they are greeted by General Okoye, a women that Steve has the utmost respect for, and he follows her as she gives him a terse, “Follow me, Captain Rogers.” She leads him through unfamiliar chambers of the palace to, where she tells him, are the floors to the lab where Bucky is currently with the Princess and her team, doing last tests on the trigger words.

She stops him with a hand to his chest just at the closed door.

“Whatever it is that you are expecting, remember that this is Wakanda, and you are not in America anymore,” she says, her eyes probing.

Steve doesn’t know how to reply to her cryptic words, so just nods, takes a breath and turns the handle when she steps to the side.

It’s unlike anything he’s ever seen, more like the sci-fi movies he’s watched. It’s also quiet, none of the background noises of machinery that he’s gotten so used to from SHIELD and Tony’s lab. Though cluttered with objects and gadgets undoubtedly beyond his understanding, the people in coats seem to be working on solo projects, giving him only a cursory glance as he looks around in wonder. There’s a sudden bark of male laughter followed by a screech then even more laughter. Steve’s breath catches, and he’s moving before he realises, drawn to the source of the sound.

Steve practically tiptoes around the spiral staircase, heart beating loudly in his chest. As quiet as he tries to be, though, as soon as he’s within his line of sight, Bucky looks up from the table he’s sitting on, face relaxed and lips curled into a smile. Steve thinks it’s the best thing he’s seen since he woke up, even though Bucky’s eyes are still dark with circles.Only his situational awareness makes him notice a young woman, the princess, standing about a meter away from Bucky, holding one of those gadgets he’d noticed on a table earlier; the manners that his Ma drilled into him are the only reason Steve doesn’t rush at Bucky, forcing himself to acknowledge Shuri first.

“Your highness,” he greets, stopping in the space between them.

“Captain,” she all but smirks.

Steve forces himself to keep his eyes on her until she dismisses him, but the princess just rolls her eyes and waves her hand at Bucky. “I’m sure you didn’t fly all that way to see me; go on. I know you’re dying to have that heartfelt reunion you’re holding yourself from.”

Steve feels the flush slowly rise up his neck, but he does slowly turn towards Bucky eagerly.

Now that they’re here he doesn’t know how to feel. Luckily Bucky has always been the more sure of their friendship and lifts his arm in the universal ‘come here’ gesture; Steve almost stumbles towards him, forgetting to be gentle and holding Bucky in a crushing embrace.

“Stevie,” Bucky whispers into his hair, and the gentleness makes the tension in Steve release; he buries his face in Bucky’s neck, chest heaving silently as he holds back the emotions. He doesn’t know how long they stand like this, - it could be two minutes, or it could be twenty - their arms tight around each other, Steve silently drawing strength and comfort and assuaging the loneliness and longing that he’d been carrying since he’d woken in this century.

Steve only pulls back fractionally from the embrace when he feels Bucky give a twitch.

“Bucky, are you-” he asks, then stops and gasps as he feels a sudden burst of heat in his lower back and he looks up at Bucky in surprise.

His bear leaves a trail of fire across his skin as first it runs up the arm looped around Bucky’s neck and peeks out his sleeve. While Steve gapes, frozen, the bear edges towards the edge of his hand, snout sniffing at Bucky’s skin.

“Steve?” Bucky asks, noticing Steve’s shock; he’s dropped his arm from where its been clutching Steve’s waist when Steve’s bear jumps from Steve’s wrist and lands lightly on Bucky’s collarbone.

Bucky gasps loudly, jerking away suddenly, eyes wide as he and Steve stare at each other in disbelief.

“Buck-,” Steve chokes out, but then Bucky makes a strangling noise and jerks his hand up to the neck of his tank top, pulling it down and staring at his chest; seconds later two inky figures, moving too fast for them to see who is who, stumble into view, wrestling and rolling around across Bucky’s skin.

It takes a few more seconds of gaping before he realises what it means - that his bear and Bucky’s wolf are touching, intertwined, burrowing into each other.

“Buck-,” Steve chokes out again, then stops at the look on Bucky’s face - astonishment, hope, love - and Steve does the only thing he can think to do which is throw himself into Bucky’s embrace again, clutching harder.

Bucky’s arm is again wrapped around his waist, pulling him in closer and closer, and Steve presses his face into Bucky’s neck once more, presses his lips onto the pulse beating incredibly loud, skin burning as he feels the sudden fire of not just one, but two soul marks skitter across his cheek from where they leapt from Bucky’s shoulder.

Steve pulls back just far enough to let Bucky see, and they exchange incredulous stares again, only daring to believe what they’re seeing.

“Stevie...” Bucky whispers in awe, “Of course it’s you. _Of course._ ”

Steve shakes his head, not knowing what to say; were there really words to express in this moment? After over 30 years (or nearly 100, depending on who you asked), after thinking his whole life that he’d never find his soulmate, after decades of ice and loneliness - and in Bucky’s case, pain and unspeakable sorrow - who would have guess that that he would be here, in the fantastical country of Wakanda, finding out that his soulmate was none other than his best friend, his brother, his _everything_.

_your pal, your buddy, your Bucky_

The words had been a taunt back then but they were prophetic and life giving now.

_His Bucky!_

How he had come to hate Rumlow with a passion since that fight in the elevator, but in the end Rumlow had been right; Bucky was his and he was Bucky’s and if his willingness to take on and give up the world isn’t the only sign he needs to affirm just who Bucky is to him, he didn't know what is. He should have realised, all those years ago, why Bucky’s wolf is the only soul mark his bear had ever touched aside from his Ma’s, but the innocence of childhood can mask a lot of things and maybe they just hadn’t been ready yet. Now though, in this new century where loving Bucky wouldn’t be wrong or shameful, Steve feels settled and clichè-ingly _complete_ for the first time in his life.

He doesn’t realise he’s crying until Bucky reaches up to cup his face with his hand and run his thumb over his cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky whispers, slowly pulling away and giving Steve a devastated and apologetic smile.

Steve jerks almost violently, reaching with both hands to hold Bucky’s hand firmly to his face, turning his head to plant a kiss to Bucky’s palm. Of _course_ Bucky would misinterpret Steve’s tears. Bucky had spent his entire life protecting, caring for, seeing only the best in Steve and just generally loving him, proving time and time again that he would do anything for Steve to be happy and whole, including staying away if necessary. So of _course_ Bucky would assume that Steve wasn’t happy about them being soulmates; he likely interpreted the tears as regret on Steve’s part and there was no way in hell that Steve would let Bucky keep thinking that.

“ _Don’t_ ,” he says fiercely. “Do _not_ be sorry for anything, ya stupid jerk.” He presses another kiss to Bucky’s palm, this time locking eyes with Bucky. “What the hell are you apologising for?”

Bucky makes an attempt to pull his hand away but Steve can out-stubborn anyone and he holds fast.

“I know this isn’t what you want-,” Bucky tries to say, but Steve cuts him off.

“If that’s what you think then you really _are_ a stupid jerk, ya stupid jerk.”

Bucky makes a protesting noise. “But I’m-,”

“The best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Steve cuts him off again. “The best thing _about_ me.”

Bucky finally stops trying to pull away and just stares at him in wonder. His eyes then trail down to his forearm where their soulmarks have finally rested, alternating between lightly swiping at each other then bopping snouts. Bucky swallows, still looking uncertain and it occurs suddenly that maybe it’s _Bucky_ who doesn’t want the soulbond, that that’s the reason why Bucky is making mildly protesting noises. Steve can feel his eyes go hot with unshed tears again at that thought, and breathing becomes difficult again. He drops his hand from where they’re still clutching at Bucky’s, arms suddenly lead.

“Sorry.” He manages to choke the word out softly, and with head dropping to his chin, he takes a shuddering breath and steps away from Bucky.

Well he tries to, but with the incredible reflexes he’s always had, Bucky reaches out and stops Steve even before he can move a muscle, hand firmly clamped down on his shoulder.

“Who’s the stupid punk now?” Bucky eyes are like fire and once again Steve feels like he can’t breathe. “You want this?” Bucky asks quietly but confidently, the sudden change in demeanour making Steve a little dizzy.

“I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more in my life.” It’s a sudden and late realisation, but Steve knows it’s one of the truest things he’s ever spoken. “It’s always been you, Buck.”

Bucky stares at him with hope and disbelief and then finally, finally, an incredulous joy. Bucky’s face splits into a grin and shocked laughter burst from his lips, which sets Steve off as well. Steve can feel his cheeks start to ache from grinning so hard, then yelps suddenly from a sharp pain on his wrist.

Their soul marks have finally separated and gone back to their owners, but they're both at the juncture where Bucky’s hand is now clutching at Steve’s wrist and they’re both nipping at him. Steve laughs again, then takes Bucky’s hand so that their fingers are intertwined; his bear finally gives Bucky’s wolf one last bop on the snout before settling down on its paws again. Bucky’s wolf gives Bucky a couple of playful nips, then lopes back to his shoulder and wraps itself around Bucky’s neck.

“I think they’re a little tired now,” Bucky says, laughter in his voice.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Shuri says from where she’s still standing, completely forgotten; they both jump guiltily. “They’ve had quite an emotional reunion and Sergeant Barnes still needs rest.”

Bucky laughs again, yanking Steve closer to him and Steve melts into Bucky’s side with a pleased sigh and only mild embarrassment. “Are you annoyed at being ignored, your Royal Highness?”

Shuri makes a face at him. “How many times have I told you not to call me that?”

“And how many times have I told you to call me Bucky?”

She sticks her tongue out at him, and Steve startles at their closeness.

(Later, he’ll find out that Bucky had been awake for three whole months before T’Challa’s call to Steve.

“I had to be sure,” Bucky murmurs into Steve’s hair as Steve pouts. “I couldn’t risk hurting you again, Steve. It would have killed me if I knew I would lose control control again and you’d let me hurt you. I just couldn’t live with that. Shuri and T’Challa, they. They understood what you meant to me probably even before I did, and they backed me up. I had to be _sure_. You understand, right?”

Steve _does_ understand, because it was Bucky’s choice and Steve would never willingly take Bucky’s choices away from him, but it does hurt, and he indulges in the extra attention Bucky showers on him to sooth his hurt feelings over.)

“As much as I hate to interrupt this touching moment-,”

“We both know that is a falsehood since you undoubtedly filmed the whole reunion,” another voice says, and they all turn quickly to where T’Challa is standing just around the corner, lips twitching.

“You’re wearing the sneakers!” Shuri crows delightedly, pointing at T’Challa’s feet.

“Indeed, that’s how I managed to _sneak_ up on you all.”

Shuri groans at the awful - according to her mutterings - use of the pun, but the Wakandan king just grins and walks up to them.

“Captain,” T’Challa greets, shaking Steve’s hand. “It’s good to see you so… joyful for once. And you too, Bucky.”

Even as Steve mumbles a “your Majesty” back at T’Challa, he’s still in slight awe at the comfortable relationship Bucky seems to have with the royal family.

“Was I really that much of a sad sop?” Bucky asks wryly.

T’Challa grins, then hits Bucky lightly on the arm. “Just happy to see you so happy, my friend.”

“As touching as this all is,” Shuri interrupts again; they all turn to her. “But we need to do some more scans and neural mapping.”

“Not testing the triggers?” Steve asks as Shuri turns to her equipment and Bucky sits on the medical bed again.

“The princess does good work,” is Bucky’s response. “I’ll tell you all about it later, but no, not trigger testing today.”

“The testing stopped two weeks ago,” T’Challa explains further. “Barnes has successfully and easily fought off the last few attempts we had at activating the trigger words; there is no danger of him being under control again. He’s done a tremendous amount of work to ensure that.”

“It was mostly Shuri and her team,” Bucky tries to correct. “She’s a genius, Steve; there’s probably no-one in the world who could have done what she did.”

“Stop being so immodest,” Shuri says without looking up from whatever she’s fiddling with. “I just wrote the program that broke the neural pathways that activated the triggers; you still had to do the hard work of beating the words out of your psyche.”

“No-one in the world could have written the program but you, Princess.”

“Well I am a genius after all,” she agrees, grinning up at them. “But come, let’s finish up so I can get back to some _real_ work. Brother, Captain, you can stay if you want, but stand over there unless you want me to map out your mind too.” She gives her brother a smirk. “Although I think I know what’s in _your_ head, all thoughts of my future sister, I bet?”

“Shuri!” T’Challa says sharply, and is, to Steve’s surprise, blushing furiously.

But Shuri just laughs. “Well, are you staying or not?”

Steve is reluctant to leave Bucky so soon after only just getting him back - he can feel his bear sit up in alarm at the thought of being away from Bucky so quickly. “I’ll stand here quietly.”

Bucky smiles at him and T’Challa gives him an understanding nod, both moving towards the far wall and watching silently as Shuri does the last of her tests. Steve knows that they have a lot to talk about later - decades and months of things to catch up on - but for now he’s just going to revel in this new feeling of completeness, of Bucky being whole, of his _soulmate_ finally brought home to him.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [men's football RPF tumblr](https://khalehla.tumblr.com) and a [pillowfort ](https://www.pillowfort.io/khalehla) for both for both MCU (mostly Stucky-related) and men's football RPF. Come say hi. Prompts welcome.


End file.
